Eighth-grade student Elliot Irving loves to yo-yo. This past summer Elliot took the hobby a step further and decided to design his very own unresponsive yo-yo. “It’s a yo-yo meant for tricks,” says Elliot, “and it doesn’t come
up when you tug on it. It requires a bind to come up.” On a road trip to Washington, Elliot’s family took a detour
and stopped in Eugene, Oregon to visit a yo-yo company called One Drop. “I got a tour of their manufacturing
facility, and they explained how all the machines worked and what the process was. When I told them that I had
designed my own yo-yo, they were thrilled. They helped me make some tweaks, such as widening areas, replacing
bearing seats, etc. It was awesome.”
As soon as Elliot found out there was a 3D printer at school, he had a project in mind. “I was so excited and the
first thing that popped into my head was to prototype the yo-yo.” Elliot spent his lunchtime in the school’s brand-new design lab with his Design Tech teacher Barbara Abecassis to design and engineer his own yo-yo. “He built
it in 3D cad,” says Abecassis, “and we used the 3D printer to test it as a prototype.” When asked about the toy
he designed, Elliot says, “I am really happy with the shape I designed, as I had no idea what it would feel like in
hand. The next step is to machine it out of aluminum!”